


Us and Our Daughter

by spinsterclaire



Series: For Imagine Claire and Jamie [9]
Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe, Book 8: Written in My Own Heart's Blood, Diana Gabaldon, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-18 14:51:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5932309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinsterclaire/pseuds/spinsterclaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 1786. As Claire and Jamie advance into old age, they reflect on their life together. Wanting to right past regrets, Claire devises a plan - and sets them on a wild goose chase through time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by several Imagine Claire and Jamie prompts, though not every installment will fill each one directly. More to come! Enjoy :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT (3/28/16): In the original versions of Chapters 1 & 2, Claire and Jamie were said to be living back in Scotland. This was because I had forgotten that MOBY actually ends with Jamie rebuilding their house on the Ridge (d'oy!). I could have left it as it was given that some time has passed between the end of MOBY and this AU...but their location in America makes traveling to France that much more difficult. Hence, the setting has been changed! :)

**FRASER'S RIDGE - May 26, 1786**

Some thoughts are unavoidable as you grow older. The future, once vast with possibility, becomes suddenly smaller, besieged by the words, thoughts, and actions of your past. These relics sit displayed, as if in a museum, and await the attention you’ve so routinely denied them.

You can choose to cling to your ignorance – and you will, of course; at first – under the pretense of _a little longer_ or _one day_. But the past will not be silenced, and you will come to understand that these bargains with your shadows are precisely that: bargains. Finite and contingent. Inevitably, you will face them – not because you can and not because you want to – but simply because you _must_. You cannot outrun the unavoidable.

And as you blow the dust away, once-dormant fears awaken. Born in darkness, they they crave the light and present themselves with an immediacy only the old can know:

_What do I regret?_

_Who have I hurt?_

And perhaps, more pressing:

_How can I make it right before it’s too late?_

I had begun to ask myself such questions. Not morbid thoughts by any means – but a persistent, visceral reaction to the realization of life’s fragility.

There were years to go yet – for I certainly had no intentions of dying and, I hoped, neither did my husband. But life expectancy was shorter in the 18th century, and at some point, the horizon had inched a little closer. My skin now read like Morse, speaking inalienable truths in the age spots on my hands and temples.

When I looked in the mirror, I recognized it instantly: the proof of my years, encroaching on the hours of my tomorrow. One day, closer; the next day, closer still. And it was this recognition of my own mortality – Time’s fickle and ticking clock – that had left me feeling restless for weeks.

Ripping a clump of grass from the earth, I sprinkled the blades over our blanket. As they lifted and swirled around me, I tried to guess their landing patterns – _one there; one here; one just beside my left foot –_ but they remained stubbornly unpredictable. One briefly brushed against my cheek, then soared off to heights and distances beyond my reach. Another fell delicately on my knee, as if to prove nature’s collective point. _You can never know._

“Sassenach,” Jamie said, “what are ye doing?”

My husband lay beside me, arms stretched behind a mass of crimson. My eye caught glimpses of new greys and whites, like snow drifts in a field of fire. Again, I felt my limbs twitch, moving in tandem with an invisible watch hand. More proof.

“We’ve lived a good life, haven’t we, Jamie?” I asked, watching the last falling bits of green. They landed neither here nor there – and certainly nowhere near my left foot.

“You don’t…have any regrets? Something that got away from you?”

I picked the single blade from my knee, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger until it snapped. Holding its broken halves in my palm, I wondered if one could ever truly die without some hint of remorse. No bridges burned and never rebuilt; no words left unsaid or deeds not done. There were so many _did not’s_ that could accumulate over the span of a lifetime, turning to lint and _should have’s_ in your pockets. Did I have any? A few, I thought.

Jamie turned on his side, elbow crooked to support his head. I could see the wheels turning behind his eyes as he rifled his own for pockets for the _did not’s_ and _should have’s_.

“Aye,” he admitted at last, a touch of melancholy in his voice, “but none that keep me awake at night.”

“But you have _some_?”

A regretless life was impossible, I was sure. Better yet: idealistic. Humans will instinctively cling to fantasy whenever death veers from mere abstraction. But was dying really made easier without regret?

Images of Brianna, Roger, Jem, and Mandy flitted through my mind. Jamie was there, too, lying next to me, with his head and my heart in his hands.

 _No_ , I thought. Dying was never easy.

“Aye, I have some,” he said, plucking the halves from my palm. He brushed one along the slope of my nose, tickling my lips with the other.

“Like?” I probed, blinking him away. Jamie smirked.

Noticing the clear display of his rising desire, I laughed and pulled him towards me. Old as we were, some faculties – particularly my husband’s – had remained as fully functional as they’d been in youth. Jamie flicked the grass to the ground, following its trajectory so that his chin rested in my lap.

“Like…I should have ravished ye whenever I could. Even when I was tired or sick or too afraid of waking the bairns, I should have taken ye hard and fast.” He pinched me and I squealed. “ _That’s_ one of my regrets.”

“But it doesn’t keep you awake at night?” I said, assuming mock-offense. I stuck out my bottom lip and lifted my hips, hoping to inspire repentance.

“Nay, Sassenach,” he said, taking the hint. He reached around me and cupped my bottom. “I realized my mistake some time ago. Thoughts of ravishing ye _do_ still torment me in the dark – but now I act on my desires. And that’s sleep I dinna mind losing.”

Now aroused to a sufficient degree myself, I abandoned regret for the comfort of my husband’s body. For not the first time, I thought death could be allayed by the all-consuming powers of the flesh – and the minutes stopped, if only temporarily.          

During our hungry scrambling, I felt my back suddenly stiffen. My muscles spasmed, locking mid-kiss, and I cried out.

“Bloody _hell_.”

Well-versed in the sounds of my pleasure and pain, Jamie abandoned his exploration of my breasts. His eyes rounded, watching my awkward squirming.

“What is it, Sassenach?”

I groaned and thrust my body into a sitting position. “My back,” I explained. “A cramp of some sort. Pop it, will you?”

He nodded, crawling behind me to knead firm, unforgiving knuckles into my trapezius. I groaned a second time, and the resulting pain – though exquisite in its release – brought back those same worries of decline and regret.

Feeling my shoulders tense with the recollection, Jamie kissed the back of my neck.

“It’s today, isn’t it, Sassenach?” he asked softly. And though I had, on the surface, left this particular date unacknowledged, I knew that my subconscious had not forgotten. I had woken this morning feeling heavier than usual, as though a presence within me had grown larger at the first cock’s crow.

“It was so long ago now,” I whispered to the sky. “You’d think…”

Jamie shifted so that I was forced face him. His legs – those strong and endless limbs he shared with Brianna – wrapped around me tightly. I sat enclosed between them, embraced by the bone, muscle, and sinew of generations’ worth of Frasers.

_Would she have had them, too?_

“It doesna ever go away, Sassenach,” Jamie said, speaking of _she_ – our first daughter. Faith. A faint apparition to the both of us, and yet as concrete and whole as our only living child. “And ye canna blame yerself for what happened. Neither can I.”

 _The Bois de Boulogne_. May 26 th – just like today, though forty-two years before. Even decades later, I could hear the loud clash of steel on steel; feel the sudden quickening in my womb and rush of blood down my thighs. At the break of dawn, Jamie had gone to the Bois to fight for his honor and for his justice. I had followed him there, gone to save him and a man unborn. All deeds done for love and loyalty - but steeped deeply in betrayal, nonetheless.

And in doing so, we had lost not only each other’s trust but a piece of ourselves as well. A tiny thing, beautiful and translucent. So still, so silent; but so alive within the both of us, even now.

No, I did not blame myself or Jamie for what had happened. That guilt had been reckoned with long ago, forgiveness granted in an impassioned communion of body, soul, and sorrow. But I had other regrets, and these, though long-suppressed, would never fade.

The wind blew suddenly cooler against my cheeks. Without realizing it, I had started to cry. The blades of grass spun around us – some farther away, some closer – and landed once more in random patterns.

And just so: we could never predict the ultimate fate of our actions, no matter how pre-meditated or well-intended they might be. We could only close our eyes and hope that, in the fullness of time, the cards would fall in some semblance of order.

“I grieve for her too, _a ghràidh_ ,” Jamie said. “But I am not sorry for what we did, for we made our peace long ago…”

“But I do regret having never held her. Sometimes I wonder if she would’ve yer eyes or the wee frecklies ye’ve got on yer nose.” He kissed the freckles in question, taking my tears and my sadness in his mouth. “And I regret not seeing her in yer arms – or later, even, wi’ you at my side.”

I understood what he meant. Jamie and I had both paid our respects at the Hôpital cemetery years ago. But we had done this separately – secretly – on our own time, perhaps out of the sense of shame we felt for being jointly responsible. To visit Faith’s grave together, dirt and grief so freshly overturned, would have made the fragments of our guilt complete. And much too hard to bear.

Following Culloden, I had considered going back. Though I had held Faith just once, a mother’s ties to her child are never weakened by distance, death, or time. The most powerful of forces will yield to that kind of bond. After all, there is transcendence – and then there is the sanctity of a mother’s love.

But regretfully, I had never made the journey. The wounds, still so raw in 1948, had made the idea alone unfathomable. I had pledged my return throughout the years, but these promises went unfulfilled in the chaos of my every day. There was work and Frank and Bree – and the not-so-simple matter of a trans-Atlantic trip to France. Eventually, however, an old newspaper had reached me, and I’d learned then that parts of the Hôpital had been destroyed in the war. A bombing in the summer of 1940 – and with it, the small graveyard where our child lie.

It was ironic, really: I had been there, fighting that same war at that same time and in that very city. How could I not have felt her?

“D’ye think she kens we loved her, Sassenach?” Jamie asked me now. “That even though she didna see us together, she kens that she was ours?”

“Oh, Jamie, I do hope so.”

“I wish I could tell her that,” he sighed, voice wistful.

We could very well return to France now, in the 18th century, and find Faith’s grave untouched. But neither of us were young and neither of us were fools. Given our age and Jamie’s general aversion to sea-travel, we had little chance of emerging from such a voyage unscathed.

There was also John Grey’s most recent correspondence to consider. Just one week prior, we had received a letter describing his rough journey across the Atlantic:

 _A most unpleasant Experience_ , he had written, still admittedly green about the gills. _I fear that my Return to London must wait until Autumn. My captain warns me that Passage in two weeks’ time will be beyond the realms of both Possibility and Sanity._

We could send Brianna and Roger, of course, and use them as conduits of our love. Ian, too, was another option. But that method carried its own questions and disadvantages. Could we afford to lose their able, helping hands? How would the children cope in their absence? Roger’s congregation? Ian’s own family?

And what about us, Jamie and I? Here in America while Faith remained in France?

No. Any interference on others’ behalf would obstruct the intimacy Jamie and I so longed for. It had to be us and Faith, alone. Only us.

“Mama! Da!”

Brianna’s voice came suddenly through the trees. I could hear Mandy too, squealing behind her and echoing her call. It would be dinner-time then, though I felt anything but hungry.

“Grannie!” Mandy yelled. “Grandda!”

And then, like a lightning bolt, it came to me. An Idea.

The words could not come fast enough as a plan took shape in my mind. A risky venture, to be sure – life was unpredictable after all; the winds rarely blew in the direction we anticipated. But we had proof: both Brianna and Roger had assured us that the letters we’d planted in 1776 had remained undisturbed until 1980. And then there were Jamie’s own spiritual dealings with time travel, a topic we had discussed more than once, however briefly.

Naturally, the logistics would have to be sorted, but I had no doubt of our ability to find solutions. Given what we knew and what we had – experience, a prompt, and a guide – this plan could work. I was sure of it.

“Jamie,” I said, vibrating with excitement, “what if it’s possible?”

Already standing, Jamie paused in the gathering of supplies and regarded me warily.

“What if _what’s_ possible, Sassenach?”

I leapt to my own feet and grabbed his hands.

“What if I told you that there was a way we could tell her? Together.”

“You canna mean…”

“I do,” I breathed. “ _Faith_.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Claire, Jamie, Roger, and Brianna discuss the logistics of Claire's plan, they suddenly realize the enormity of their task - and the risks involved.

**FRASER'S RIDGE -** **May 31, 1786**

“Have ye gone mad, Sassenach? _No_! I willna do it. You canna –”

“Jamie. You must.”

Our conversation had followed this same combative pattern for the better part of the day. In front of us lay a wreckage of half-read books and cartographic research, strategies scribbled in the ink spills staining the desktop. Circling it all were my husband and I, snapping and bristling like a pair of hounds. Save our raised voices, the house sat eerily quiet in the lazy afternoon sun, emptied as it was of the usual hums, creaks, and clangs of our daily life. Or namely, a clan of riotous grandchildren.

“Let’s let Grannie and Grandda…sort some things out, aye?” Roger had said earlier, pushing his offspring out the door.

And bless him for it. Even _I_ was cowering beneath the booming echo of my own voice.

“Christ,” Jamie cried now, “she _has_ gone mad!” He addressed the heavens with balled fists, curses in his eyes. “There must be some other way. Some other – ”

“ _Jamie_ ,” I huffed again, “there _isn’t_ another way. And it wouldn’t make much of a difference if there were.”

As my plan had developed, certain contingencies had chosen to reveal themselves. Logistics, it would seem, were not the only things to be wrangled with, as problems of a more ethical nature were proving just as tricky.  _This_ was one such contingency – but I’d be damned if I’d let it stand in my way.

Jamie shook his head furiously, refusing acceptance.

“Aye, but it doesna have to start wi’ _me_. Dinna make me shoulder this burden, Claire, for I canna bear it. If something goes wrong…”

His face crumpled and, with it, much of my resolve to prove him wrong. His fears, I knew, were aptly just and so I took a guilty step forward.

“The nature of the beast,” I said, my own stomach turning at the probability of our failure. Logic and reason being rather obsolete in matters of time travel and spiritual communion, I certainly had my own doubts. But despite its obvious risks, I thought the plan we had was sound – or as sound as it could be, all things considered.

“D’ye speak of war, Sassenach? Or of love?”

I smirked.

“Are they not one and the same?”

At this particular moment, Brianna charged through the doorway. Covered in dirt and at least a liter of blood – an animal’s, I hoped – she regarded us with frightened eyes and a hand to her gun. As we were not in the clutches of some violent intruder, she melted against the jamb, relieved by our apparent safety.

“ _Jesus_ ,” she said, breathing heavily, “I could hear your shouting from outside! I thought –”

“That I was about to kill yer mother? Aye, I am!”

 _Literally and figuratively_ , I mused, though I refrained from saying so aloud. I knew better than to antagonize a Scot – natch, a _Fraser_ – when he stood so tensely on his haunches.

Another face came to float above Brianna’s shoulder: Roger, newly returned from Sunday’s mass. While thankfully unsoiled by the gore of tonight’s dinner, his appearance was far from desirable. Flops of hair clung wetly to his forehead, and his underarms spoke more of hard labor than of preaching from a pulpit.

“The church,” he said, atoning for the disarray, “Like the pits of hell. The kids have gone swimming to cool off.”

Summer had descended with a vengeance upon western North Carolina. Having only just emerged from an unusually frigid spring – a hundred variations of freezing rain, and little more – the country had spoiled in the heat. As equally caught off guard, we had been a bit of a feral bunch since mid-May, perpetually sweat-soaked and stained.

“What’s going on?” Roger asked, looking from myself to Bree and Jamie. Obstinate husband notwithstanding, I thought this the perfect opportunity to advance my case. Perhaps Brianna could persuade Jamie where I could not – and in terms much more suitable to tenacious red-heads.

“I was just telling Jamie that he _absolutely_ must kill me. Er, try to, at least.”

“Ooh!” Brianna squealed. She rubbed her hands together as if sitting down to a feast. “You told him then?”

Brianna and I had discussed the very sparse rudiments of my plan three days before. She had a notion of the key players – a letter, Jamie, and 20th century Claire Randall – and their roles in the whole production, though I had withheld most of the details. (Better to iron out the kinks before offering it up for judgement.) And while skeptical at first, Brianna’s own familiarity with time travel had helped garner her support.

“Oh _God_! Just wait until you tell Da about this!”

This anticipation of Jamie’s anger, I noted with mild offense, had not waned despite the passage of several days. In fact, now that I was in the throes of battle, it was all Brianna could do to keep from laughing at the sight of her father fuming beside me. I watched her settle comfortably in a chair and hoped she wouldn’t cause more trouble.

“Aye, she did,” Jamie muttered. He made another low-voiced reference to my “madness”, but I paid no mind to it.

Loosening his shirt collar, Roger came to sit beside his wife.  He picked up a map, inspected it, and began to fan himself.

“I’m afraid I’m still lost.”

“The _plan_ , remember? I told you last night!”

I directed a scolding glance at my daughter – so much for sharing things in confidence, then. Though maybe it was just as well: the more prepped my audience was, the more receptive they’d be to the strange and twisted goose chase I had in mind.

“Oh yes!” Roger exclaimed. “The letter!” _And Faith,_ he almost added, but everyone had danced circles around that name, afraid of overstepping boundaries and invoking old griefs. It hung on his lips, unspoken.

“And Jamie,” I added, steering the conversation back to my husband.

“So you’ll write the letter…” Roger turned to Jamie in earnest, “and he’ll deliver it?”

Jamie growled, and I hushed him with a stern glare.

“One of us will write it, yes. But the second part will be left to John Grey.”

I waved this bit of information away, unconcerned with the details so long as John stayed true to his word. I was unsure how he’d manage it – but I had good reason to trust in his abilities. After spending years surrounded by political intrigue, he’d acquired quite a knack for exchanging secrets across countries and oceans. Why not centuries as well?

“The letter is merely the catalyst. With hope, it will lead me straight to Jamie.”

In fact, I was positive it would. Claire Randall would receive word from a close friend of her Uncle Lamb – a Scottish priest, come to Paris out of a sense of duty to his God and to His people. I would be there already, called from Vichy the week before though by much less religious motives. Father Fraser would suggest that we meet on the morning of June 3rd, under the guise that he could use my help in tending to the city’s growing number of war casualties.

 _Are you familiar with l’Hôpital des Anges?_ he would write. And out of allegiance to my Uncle and my practice, I would go to meet this strange Father Fraser – and learn of a young girl named Faith.

“And Jamie can…time travel?” Roger’s tone held more cynicism than I thought appropriate for a minister.

“Not necessarily,” I said defensively, “but – ”

Bree sat up straighter. “Astral projection?”

Astral projection might, in fact, be the best description for it. Scientific theory seemed to be the only viable channel for gaining _some_ sort of understanding of the whole phenomenon.

In his sleep, Jamie could travel in time without any apparent aid, save memory and fierce emotion. While his corporeal body remained in the 18th century, his spirit was projected into the future, taking on its own sort of ghostly being as it gained a foothold in the 1900’s. Frank had seen him. So had I. Sometimes he appeared as only a flicker, straddling the line between _there_ and _not there_. At other times, he gave no indication that he was anything less than human. But while Jamie had this ability to project and travel, it was purely coincidental. Whatever forces were responsible sought  _him_ and never the other way around.      

Until now.

I nodded towards my daughter. “A little like that, yes. But a bit more –”

“Spiritual?” Roger posed.

I looked to Jamie, admiring the set of his jaw and razor-edged nose. Something spiritual and God-like, indeed.

“‘Supernatural’, I was going to say. But I like yours better.” I paused and took a deep breath. “Jamie travels whenever he senses that I, Claire of the 20th century, is in a…compromising situation.”

‘Compromising situation’ in this instance ranged from that of physical sickness – I’d been beastly ill in the winter of ’52; hospitalized with a terrible case of pneumonia – to more intangible things, like Frank’s infidelity. So, too, the dark and despairing moments where I became a threat to my own health and safety.

Moved to action by my nihilistic thoughts, Jamie had appeared in Brianna’s nursery on an evening I’d felt particularly hopeless. It wasn’t just comfort that Jamie’s spirit had provided, I later realized, but the will to persevere. I had survived because of him and those ghostly visits, the reassuring warmth that took root in my belly whenever I felt him near.

“‘A compromising situation’,’” Brianna echoed, a smile in her eyes. “Well then, I’m surprised Da is ever here at all.”

Despite the joke, Roger’s face grew suddenly serious.

“So if it’s controllable…why bother with a letter at all? Why not just have Jamie find you himself?”

My husband stepped forward, reluctantly joining the discussion. “Aye, it’s controllable in its own way – but only for a day or two. And I dinna ken if yer familiar wi’ my wife, Mackenzie, but she’s no one to be easily found in two days’ time.”

Brianna made a sound of understanding. “Right. Easier if Mama comes to _him_ then. She’ll need enough time to receive the letter and make the necessary arrangements to meet. Even if Da were to leave today, May 31st, and deliver the letter himself, it would only give us three days of leeway. And could you even manage that long, Da?”

Jamie shook his head, despondent.

“But,” I began, “if the letter is sent in _this_ century, we can ensure that it arrives long before I even leave for Paris. That’s plenty of advanced notice. Then Jamie can easily arrive on the 2 nd or the 3rdand go straight to the Hôpital to meet me.”

When said aloud, the difficulty of preserving a letter for two hundred years – in addition to guaranteeing its overall delivery – seemed like nothing but a minor nuisance. But I knew better than to give my growing optimism the upper hand and said as such.

“Naturally, there’s a chance it could get lost along the way…but we know how this works. We know it _can_ work. So it gives us a larger margin of error…so to speak.”

“Aye,” Roger mumbled, “‘Proper preparation prevents poor performance’ as the Reverend used to say.”

Jamie groaned beside me.

“My head is fit to burst just thinking about it.”

I put a conciliatory hand on his shoulder. Though warm to the touch, it held none of the pliant softness so common to those of advancing age. While most developed pooched bellies and double chins from years of inactivity, Jamie had remained as solid as ever. At 65, he still looked like a Viking king, hewn from the finest marble Mother Nature could offer. I sighed, grateful for his solidness, and hoped it would be enough to carry him through.

“Anyways. As luck would have it, _that_ Claire is about to be in a considerable amount of danger three days from now.”

Roger leaned forward, curious.        

“June 3rd,” he said,.”The day of the meeting at the Hopital.”

I sensed Jamie tense beside me, shoulders hunching as if, in making himself smaller, I might forget his role in the plan.

“At 4PM on June 3rd in the year of our Lord 1940, a bomb hits Paris. Not a large one, mind you,” I assured, noticing Roger’s Adam’s Apple sliding up and down his throat, “but one that did significant damage to the immediate area – and me, actually.”

As the incident had left me bedridden and without memory, the details were a bit muddled. While working in Vichy, I had been called to the capital sometime in mid-May. My overseer had given me little choice in the matter, saying only that my skills were required in Paris the following morning “for an undetermined period of time”. German warfare had only just begun to touch the edges of the city, but there was reason to believe this distance would grow less and less as the Axis powers advanced through France. Parts of Le Havre, I’d been told, had burned to a crisp within the span of a single hour.

And as it turned out, my aid had not been ill-advised: Paris was bombed only a week later, leaving 254 civilian causalities in its wake. I, having obeyed orders, had been one of them.

Beyond these basic facts, however, I had no recollection of my time there. June 3rd and the fourteen days preceding it had been erased from my memory following an unlucky sequence of events. According to my nurse, a man had found me in the 4th _arrondissment,_  lying unconscious beneath a mountain of rubble. Suffering from his own shock, my savior had merely dropped me outside the nearest hospital without notice. Thus, the finer details of my rescue had remained something of a mystery ever since.

I relayed this to the open-mouthed and wide-eyed stares of my audience.

“Forgive me again for being slow, but what in the Devil does all this mean?” Roger’s gazed bounced between myself and Jamie – me, standing excited and erect; Jamie, stooped and angry at my side. From an outsider’s perspective, the entire affair did seem rather bombastic. No pun intended.

Brianna began pacing the room, arms gesticulating wildly as she puzzled the plan aloud. It was in moments like these that I saw the shadow of her other father – Frank Randall – animating her face and mannerisms. My late husband had always addressed his classroom in such a way, his quiet nature overcome by an enthusiasm to educate and enlighten.

“154 years and 3 days from now, Mama will be caught in the middle of a German attack,” she began, turning to her husband. “She’ll lose memory of May 20th to that very date.”

Roger’s eyes flickered in understanding.

“Aye, and wee Faith’s grave will be destroyed in that same attack on June 3rd…”

“So John will send a letter from ‘Father Fraser’ – _Da_ – asking Mama to meet him at the Hôpital. Da will,” Brianna paused, waving unproven theories away, “ _you know_ , and then guide Mama so that she’ll visit Faith’s grave before the accident…”

“And then they’ll both be there together!”

Roger and Brianna were a pair of beaming faces now, lambent with pride.

“With hope, yes,” I said, quite impressed myself.

“Why, that’s fantastic!” Roger cried. “But hold on. What about the consequences? Surely something will happen if we change things?”

“Now _that_ , my lad, is the million dollar question.”

Having never altered the past to a significant degree, we could only guess at the damages our meddling might incur. Was my accident in Paris on June 3rd, 1940 crucial to history? Probably not. To my own life? Most likely. As such, it was imperative that I stay in the path of destruction, for I couldn’t risk having any memory of my encounter with the Scottish and red-haired Father Fraser. The consequences of that – of knowing Jamie before our first meeting; of knowing Faith after her death but before her birth – were beyond the scope of our imagination. And while the entire ordeal was shrouded in ambiguity, this uncertainty was far too great to leave at the mercy of chance.

So yes. It was essential that I find myself in the midst of that German air raid and struck unconscious on June 3rd, 1940. Our plan could not interfere and my safety could not be a consideration. Jamie had to make sure of that.

“It’s incredibly risky, of course,” I conceded, “but luckily we have the memory loss. If all doesn’t go to pot, I won’t remember the letter, Jamie, _or_ visiting the cemetery.”

“ _Luck_ ,” Jamie grumbled. “That’s a funny way of putting it.” He turned to Roger, looking for sympathy. “ _I’m_ to go and guide her to Faith – and then make sure she’s knocked over the heid wi’ a giant piece o’ metal! And leave her there, too!”

“But Da,” Brianna warned, approaching him with caution, “if you do this…If you _do_ meet Mama but lead her to safety…What if she remembers you five years later? Are you willing to risk what might happen then?” Her eyes dropped to the floor then, voice barely a squeak. “Risk _me_?”

“Jesus,” Roger breathed, “I can barely keep it all straight.”

“Indeed,” I agreed. “It is a bit of a – excuse my language – _clusterfuck_.”

Jamie’s gaze, I realized, had not left our daughter’s face. Finally, he cleared his throat, and I noticed the tears welling in his eyes.

“Aye. I’ll do it then. If I must.”

He was far from pleased, that much was obvious. But Jamie would do what was required, what was necessary – for the sake of us and our daughters.

Brianna looked up, smiled, and stretched out her hand. Like me, she saw his pain. And like me, she recognized the need for a private word.

“Come, Da. I’ve got some things to carry in. Help me?”

Without much ado, Jamie grunted his consent and made for the hallway. As Brianna walked passed me, I brushed a stilling hand against her arm. She nodded and left the room, brows drawn and face set with that characteristically Fraser stubbornness.

My son-in-law sat quietly in the wingback chair, smelling faintly of incense and a hard day’s work. We remained there in silence, listening to the sounds of Mandy’s cries beyond the window.

After some time, Roger finally stood, chin raised and green eyes leveled with mine. Despite a desire to dive headfirst beneath my bed sheets, I felt compelled to meet his stare – and the challenge brewing within it.

“ _Is_ it worth it?” he asked softly.

“Yes.” The word reverberated throughout my thoracic cavity like a drumbeat. _Yes, of course_.

“ _That_ ,” Roger pointed to the cluttered desk, “for all of _this_?” Arms gestured to the noises outdoors: the murmur of Jamie and Bree’s conversation, the playful squeals of my grandchildren, the breathing of distant mountains. I thought that Roger spoke not out of reproach – for he was a minister, after all; a master of objectivity and compassion – but merely a need to understand.

“Yes,” I said again, “it’s worth it. We have to try while there’s still – ” I faltered here, forced to finished my sentence with trembling lips. “While there’s still time.”

“But why, Claire?”

A voice came suddenly from the doorway.

“Da?”

It was Jem. At sixteen, the soft curves of his adolescence had given way to the hardened, solid bones of manhood. He stood far taller than my five-foot-six and his hands, large as a bear’s, could grind me to a pulp if so inclined. Even so, I saw only the boy of his past: My first grandchild, sweet Jeremiah, who’d once sat atop Jamie’s shoulders, stark naked and with a fishing rod in his hand. I noticed a similar sensation occurring in Roger’s eyes, the cool emeralds warming as they shone brightly with old memories.

Still, though, Roger studied me, eyes relentless in their questioning: _But why_?

“Is something wrong?” Jem asked. I offered him a reassuring smile and walked over to the desk. I pulled out the chair, fully aware of being watched, and cleared a small space of its clutter.

 _But why_?

I looked up, filled with a renewed sense of purpose and hope. I thought of my child, and the sixteen year-old she might have been but never was. I remembered, too, the tiny blue fingers of her hands, pressed to my lips in silent parting.

“Wouldn’t you?” I said to Roger, and sat down to begin my work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU to anyone who bothered reading this headfuckery. I appreciate it more than I can say! Heads up - the 40's (and less confusing chapters) are next!


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